


One Shall Not Gather Love

by reine_des_corbeaux



Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Genre: Betrayal - A Witnesses B Cheating on Them, Break Up, Disintegrating relationships - Freeform, Fever Dreams, Hallucinations, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:48:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: Dorian comes to Basil in his dreams, because it is in dreams that Dorian lives most now, dreams and the shattered china still lying on the parlour floor after their last argument, dreams and paintings and memories and crushed hopes and fragile, torn promises.
Relationships: Dorian Gray/Basil Hallward
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	One Shall Not Gather Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



The fever steals upon him in the last days of autumn, while Basil puts the last touches on the portrait of a pretty society lady, painting her cheeks the delicate pink of a summer rose. She’s not as lovely as Dorian, Basil thinks, but then again, there are few creatures in this world as lovely as Dorian to him. He still makes her charming, delicate, girlish as a china shepherdess. For a moment, he doesn’t think of Dorian, who he has not seen in several weeks and who may be avoiding Basil as he often does when he falls into the more libertine moods of which Basil heartily disapproves. Perhaps it is in that moment that the fever sneaks in-- nothing more than a simple autumn’s illness, only dangerous in its sudden onset and sudden heat. 

By the time he leaves his studio, Basil is sweating and ill, and takes himself to bed with worry. He calls his butler, and tells him that he’ll keep to bed and perhaps he ought to call for the doctor. Then, he sleeps, losing himself to fever and delirium, spinning into dreams of devils and of rooms of masked dancers. He wanders through rooms devoid of life, and always, he feels eyes watching him. They are, Basil knows, the eyes of Dorian Gray. If, in this nebulous dream-world, he can only turn another corner, he will see the portrait he painted in a summer so long ago, and that will be the closest he can come to seeing Dorian again. They’d argued before Basil’s sickness, and Basil has given up hope of seeing him again for some time. But Basil is ill now, and perhaps that alone will draw Dorian to him and inspire whatever compassion Dorian might have left within his beautiful body. 

In his sickness, Basil writhes upon the bed, delirious with fever and unattended. But, he tells himself again and again, Dorian will come. Dorian always comes to his side, swift and cruel as an avenging angel, his bright hair gleaming like a halo. Basil painted him as an angel once, but perhaps he misremembers. After all, he has painted Dorian as so many things and so many people. His face will be forever emblazoned in Basil’s mind, a beacon until the last day of the world, shining out to invite him in. _You have blessed me, Dorian Gray_ , Basil thinks, and sinks into the wild delusions of his fever once again. 

Dorian comes to Basil in his dreams, because it is in dreams that Dorian lives most now, dreams and the shattered china still lying on the parlour floor after their last argument, dreams and paintings and memories and crushed hopes and fragile, torn promises. The real Dorian flits in and out of Basil’s life like a shadow, at once cruel and kind, tender and thoughtless. But if he comes to visit Basil on his sickbed, Basil does not know. Before he’d left, they’d kissed, hard and desperate, and desire welled in Basil then like a vast and unbounded sea. Now, the sea has receded with Dorian, leaving Basil bereft at some dark tideline. 

He cannot bring himself to hate Dorian, but he feels the love he bears Dorian twist and warp within him, at once resentment, desire, and fear. Even so, in the dreams, Dorian is beautiful, an angel in white who leans over him and brings him pain and succor all at once, though the mask of innocence lies lightly on his face. 

“Speak to me!” Basil cries to this Dorian in the heat of his fever. “Speak to me and bring me some relief, Dorian!” 

Dorian only smiles, and his smile is sharp and burning, a stretching of red lips over white teeth. Basil would let him tear him apart if only he could. In his dream, he reaches for Dorian with both hands, because this is how he will keep him close, and this is how they will both reach salvation. But Dorian turns away, and the light blinds Basil as he weeps and shudders in his cold bed. But when he wakes and calls for his servant, he thinks the fever has broken. Perhaps this violent vision of Dorian has, after all, made him well. 

Sitting in bed, Basil waits for Dorian to arrive, because he must. How could he not? Dorian will come, and Basil will paint him again, and this terrible premonition haunting his heart will cease. But Dorian does not arrive. On the third day after Basil’s fever breaks, his card comes instead, embossed and lovely. Basil cannot stop himself from pressing a kiss to it, once he has been left conveniently alone. The card, without Dorian, is still a holy object. 

With the card comes an invitation to a private party at Lord Henry Wotton’s home, and Basil can’t help but wish it was anywhere but at his old friend’s townhouse. Henry is cruel because he has decided kindness is a weakness that must be replaced with brittle logic. Basil finds his influence on Dorian malign, but he will go and see nonetheless, spending time amongst society. Perhaps he’ll find Dorian in a corner. Perhaps he’ll find a patron. Perhaps he’ll ask Dorian why he didn’t come to his bedside. All such things remain to be seen. 

And so, on the night of the party, Basil goes. He dresses in his best, and does his best as well to strike up conversation with potential patrons, of whom there are many. Seeing no sign of Henry or Dorian, Basil drifts through the elegant rooms, smiling and nodding to people he half-recognizes from salons and society. The house is a sea of silk and velvet, of faces half-blurred. Though he hasn’t had anything to drink, the room still reels around Basil, and he cannot manage to engage fully in any conversation. He says a few half-hearted words to an elderly woman in search of someone to paint her grandson’s portrait. He smiles at a man he once encountered at the Royal Academy. But nowhere does he see Dorian. 

The press of people has become almost unbearable as Basil pushes his way into the library. It’s dimly lit in the room, nearly empty, shelves looming high above the room, full of books, and the window letting in a thin, cloud-obscured moonlight that mingles with the yellowy glow of the streetlamps. Basil closes the door behind him and lets out a breath. As he does so, he hears a soft giggle, not unpleasant, but certainly not expected. He looks beyond the moonlight, and he sees golden hair, pale hands, dark clothing half-obscured by the shadows. 

It is Dorian Gray, and he is with someone, laughing with the collar of his shirt undone and his hair in disarray. The young man who plants kisses on his neck (and Basil can see now that it is a young man) seems oblivious to Dorian’s laughter, intent only on his task. Jealousy stabs into Basil, hard and sudden, even though he has known for so long that Dorian would never really be true. He didn’t expect to see it with his own eyes. And he did not expect his eyes to meet Dorian’s as Dorian throws his head back to laugh again as the young man before him sinks to his knees. 

_Dorian knew,_ Basil thinks. _He knew I would be here._ He doesn’t know why he leaps to this conclusion, but he stares into Dorian’s eyes even as he hears the soft sounds of flesh upon flesh. He could ignore this, could stare elsewhere, but he cannot help but look at Dorian, all the while suffering an ache that feels something like betrayal. 

“I think we have a witness,” Dorian says softly. “Basil, must you lurk in shadows? We’ve been waiting for you.”  
Ice runs through Basil’s veins, chilling him utterly. And before he can think better of it, he runs. The drunken haze that is not drunkenness leaves his head, but the torturous pain of separation remains as Basil finds himself on the street. 

There’s a thick fog coming off the river, choking and blinding, but Basil walks into it and breathes it in as though it is the air of springtime. For once he welcomes the invisibility, and the ability to run away from his thoughts and from Dorian. He feels feverish again, and Dorian still haunts him. Stopping for a moment, Basil pauses to breathe, to hear the padding of feet behind him, and he wonders if it could, perhaps, be Dorian, come back again to apologize. Basil closes his eyes against the fog and against tears, but he knows he’ll see Dorian again. This could all have been a mirage, a trick of the night and his fevered brain, he thinks desperately. Dorian will come back to him. He’ll return to the light of day and happiness with Basil by his side, if only Basil could reach out to him. Dorian has to. And so, Basil must remain firm. 

He shivers in the cold, but the fever has gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> I like to imagine Basil gets it together with regards to Dorian in this universe and manages to save himself, but I'm not sure he does. 
> 
> Title from "Before Parting" by Algernon Charles Swinburne.


End file.
